General

what is a helpline? helplines, also known as hotlines or crisis call centres, are a category of mental health and behavioral health service they are a free and accessible way for people to get immediate help with thoughts of suicide, abusive situations, and other crises helplines are proven to measurably reduce suicidal ideation in those contacting them, and are best practice for suicide and crisis prevention, as recommended by the world health organization throughline defines a helpline as a service that provides this definition is further explained in the table below free no cost to user standard phone charges may apply on demand available immediately, without appointment queues and wait times may apply anonymous & confidential anonymous users are not required to, but may willingly, disclose personal information at their discretion, provided that such information is kept confidential online chats that require an email address or phone number to access the service qualify, as long as they are confidential confidential information provided by the user may be used (a) for the purpose of providing the service to the user (b) as necessary for the purpose of improving the service for users (c) to alert emergency responders when someone is at immediate risk of harm, if legally required or helpline policy emotional support provides understanding, non judgmental listening and relevant information from a human a human volunteer, counselor or peer, not a chatbot or automated system for crisis overwhelming psychological distress i e suicidal thoughts, anxiety, trauma & ptsd distressing situation or experience domestic violence, sexual assault how does throughline qualify helplines for inclusion? we developed a 9 point scoring system to assess if a service is a legitimate and active helpline all potential services must pass at least stage 7 of this scoring system to be included further information on our qualification criteria is available upon request how does throughline maintain the accuracy of its helpline data? throughline maintains helpline dataset health through three processes verification, validation, and dataset audits and maintenance verification we source helpline information directly from helpline providers we repeat this regularly to ensure we have the latest information (at least every 9 months) validation we check selected urls, phone, and sms numbers to ensure they are valid and operational audits & maintenance we audit countries, topics and data points for accuracy and relevancy we also perform daily maintenance on the dataset as a result of communication with helplines how do you ensure services are effective? to achieve throughline’s mission of easing emotional crises, we ensure that all services meet certain standards of inclusive care our clinical team has used evidence backed research to set these standards, and all partners are asked to agree to them as part of our verification process these standards are summarised below non judgemental users should feel that their identities, experiences and feelings are valid and will not be met with criticism or judgement respect for autonomy users should be actively involved in decisions and have the freedom to choose options that align with their personal values and goals cultural competence providers should aim to be culturally competent and sensitive to the unique needs and backgrounds of their users throughline provides helpline services in over 140 countries why do some countries not have helplines? throughline endeavors to list every active helpline in the world unfortunately, some countries do not have helplines or have low topic coverage commonly, there are 3 reasons population size countries with <1 million people may lack the resources to establish helplines of countries this size, only 25% have a helpline development lesser developed countries often lack the necessary mental and behavioral health infrastructure, expertise and funding cultural & legal considerations cultural and religious factors can influence the acceptance of helplines, as do legal restrictions on suicide in up to 52 countries https //www suicide decrim network/ how are helplines ranked in the web app, widget and api? helplines are ranked using a multi layered algorithm designed to surface the most relevant, trusted, and accessible services for each user after implementation, this approach increased conversion rates to accessing helplines by 50% the ranking engine considers over a dozen factors, including topic relevance, availability (e g 24/7 services), verification status, and contact methods like phone, sms, or chat each search begins with the user’s selected country, region (if applicable), and topic from there, several layers of logic are applied custom ranking rules prioritize helplines that are verified, always open, and offer multiple ways to connect topic relevance favors more specialized services—helplines that support fewer topics are considered more focused and are ranked higher when relevant this is strengthened with synonym mapping for example, a search for “abuse & domestic violence” may return helplines that use terms like “refuge ” contextual rules improve specific scenarios for example if no topic is selected, widely available helplines that support high priority concerns (e g suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety) are ranked higher searches for "pregnancy & abortion" boost services that specialize in supporting women searches for "gender & sexual identity" boost services that specialize in supporting lgbtq+ people ai re ranking adjusts the order based on real user behavior—prioritizing helplines that people actually click or engage with most often together, these factors ensure that the services shown aren’t just relevant on paper—they’re the ones most likely to help how long does it take to integrate throughline? because the web app and widget come with pre built interfaces, they are very quick to integrate depending on your internal processes, we can have you up and running within 48 hours the api requires engineering expertise, and so takes longer to integrate the exact length depends on your product needs product how to integrate web app simply display your unique web app link in your product widget select your preferred parameters, copy the code snippet, and embed the snippet into the html of a web page api work with your developer to integrate the api according to your needs can we only show information for certain topics? yes in the web app, you can refer users to a dedicated topic page ( e g suicidal thoughts )or a country specific topic page (e g suicide hotlines in the united states ) in the widget, you can pre set the topics in the api, you can call only the topics that you need i have a technical question or would like to share feedback who can i reach out to? please refer to our documentation for any questions related to calling our api if you need further assistance or want to provide feedback, please email us how can i cancel my subscription? you can cancel your subscription at any time, just reach out to our sales team